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C. E. WILKINSON.

THREAD UNWINDER FOR SEWING MACHINES. No. 388,328. Patented Aug. 21. 1888.

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CHARLES E. \VILKINSON, OF MATTEAWAN, NEW YORK.

THREAD-UNWINDER FOR SEWING-MACHINES.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 388,328, dated August 21, 1888. Application filed February 3, 1888. Serial No. 262,881. (No model.)

.To all whom it may concern:

Beitknown that I, CHARLES E. WILKINSON, of Matteawan, in the county of Dutchess and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Unwinding Attachments for Spools, of which the following is a specification.

For sewing-machines such as are used in manufacturing establishments the thread is commonly taken from large spools, there belng often a pound or more of thread upon a spool, and it is obvious that with so heavy a spool the thread cannot be practically unwound by pulling it off and rotating the spool. Therefore, with such large spools there are commonly employed unwinding attachments, which comprise a base-piece on which the spool stands, a cap applied to the upper end of the spool, and a flier which is pivoted concentrically upon the cap and has a thread-eye at its outer end beyond the periphery of the spool and which by a draft upon the thread is rotated or turned in frictional contact with the cap on which itis placed. An unwinding attachment of this character is shown in my United States Letters Patent No. 311,625, dated February 3, 1885. Above the spool and cap and substantially concentric with them is an upper thread-guide through which the thread is passed, and a pull upon the thread by the sewing-machine will turn the flier and thus unwind the thread from the stationary spool.

Heretofore the thread has had to be threaded endwise through both the thread eye on the flier and through the upper thread-guide, and the object of my present invention is to enable the thread to be passed into these eyes by a lateral movement and without the trouble of carefully threading it through the eyes.

The invention will be hereinafter described, and particularly pointed out in the claims.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a perspective view of a spool and unwinding attachments embodying my invention. Fig. 2 is a plan of the flier upon a larger scale, and Fig. 3 is an end view of the flier upon the same scale as Fig. 2.

Similar letters of reference designate corresponding parts in the several figures.

A designates a base-piece, which may either be supported upon a bench or table or upon the spool-spindle of a sewing-machine, as is illustrated in my United States Letters Patent No. 371,291, dated October 11, 1887. Upon this basepiece A the spool of thread B is placed, and to the upper end of the spool is applied a cap, 0, which is usually of greater diameter than the spoo,and which is provided with a beveled periphery, as shown at c, the object of which will presently appear.

D designates a flier, which is pivoted to the cap at its center and which rests with fric tional contact upon the top of the cap. As here represented, the flier D is formed ofwire bent into a suitable shape, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3, and having at the center aspiral coil, D, and at the outer end a thread-eye, d. The cap 0 is provided with a central vertical post, 0, which receives the spiral coil D of the flier and upon which said coil is held by the screw 0, inserted in the top of the post.

Above the spool is an upper threadguide, E, which is substantially concentric with the spool and cap. This thread-guide is upon a standard, E, and both the guide and the standard may be formed by a piece of wire of suitable size springing upward from the basepiece A, and which has its upper end bent or returned upon itself to form what is in substantial efiect an eye, E. The extreme end of the wire is not brought into close contact with itself, but is slightly removed therefrom, leaving the gap or slot e. The purpose of this gap or slot e is so that the th read,to introduce it into the guide, instead of having its end threaded through this guide, may be simply pressed upward against the standard E, and thus guided to the gap orslot e and passed laterally through the said slot into the guide-eye E. At the outer end of the flier D the wire is bent downward, as shown at d, and has frictional contact at that point with the beveled periphery of the cap 0, and is also bent inward upon itself to form the eye d, which has an opening, d, at the outer side of the eye, or that part of the eye which is most distant from the pivotal point of the flier. The portions of wire which are at the opening d are overlapped one on another, as indicated at d in Figs. 2 and 3, and consequently it is not easy to introduce the thread thereinto or remove it therefrom when held truly vertical.

ICO

To introduce the thread (represented by the dotted line sin Figs. 2 and 3) into the eye d, it is inclined, as shown by those dotted lines and relatively to the perpendicular, and the thread may then be readily entered laterally into the opening d, which is formed between the overlapping portions d of wire. As indicated by the dotted line showing the thread in Fig. 1, the thread from the periphery of the spool up to the flier inclines outward from the perpendicular, and from the eye 01 of the flier up to the upper guide, E, inclines inward. Consequently the thread is normally drawn against the inner side of the eye (1, or that side which is nearest the center of the flier and which is closed or continuous, and there is littlelikelihood of the thread escaping at the opening d at the outer side of the eye, even though that opening be unguarded. If the thread, however, becomes slackened, it might escape through a simple opening or gap in the eye, and I therefore form such opening d between the laterallyoverlapping portions d of the flier, so that the thread cannot readily be entered into or escape from the eye unless it assumes an inclined position, as shown by the dotted lines 3 in Figs. 2 and 3.

By my invention I enable the thread to be introduced laterally into both the thread-eye in the flier and also into the upper guide eye without the necessity of carefully threading the thread through the eyes, as is necessary when they are closed.

It will be seen that by engaging the flier in frictional contact with the cap 0 the flier will not continue to revolve (due to momentum) after the draft upon the thread is released, thereby preventing the thread unwinding and becoming tangled.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. The combination, witha base andaspool thereon, of a cap applied to the upper end of the spool, an upper thread-guide above the spool, and a flier, D, formed of wire and having at the outer end an inward bend forming the threadeyed, and the overlapping portions (1 forming between them an opening, d", through which the thread from the spool may be entered laterally intothe said eye, substantially as herein described.

2. In an unwinding attachment for spools, the combination, with the cap, of the flier pivoted to the said cap with one end and projecting with its opposite end beyond the periphery of the cap and formed with the downward bend, which terminates in an inward-projecting eye completely surrounding the thread passed vertically therethrough, and overlap ping portions, as d one arranged above the other to form an opening, as (1", whereby the thread may be laterally passed through said opening into the eye, substantially as setforth.

CHAS. E, WILKINSON.

Witnesses:

HENRY J. MCBRIDE, JOSEPH W. Ron. 

